Brewer's: Poille

An Apulian horse. The horses of Apulia were very greatly valued at one time. Richard, Archbishop of Armagh in the fourteenth century, says of St. Thomas, “Neither the mule of Spain, the courser of Apulia, the repedo of Ethiopia, the elephant of Asia, the camel of Syria, nor the English ass, is bolder or more combative than he.”

Therto so horsly, and so quyk of ye, As if a gentil Poille hys courser were; For certes, fro his tayl unto his cere Nature ne art ne couthe him nought amend.

Chaucer: Canterbury Tales, line 10,536.

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